You need to hear this.

The World Wide Web turns 30 years old

I vividly remember the 1990s, when the Web was brand new. Back then, I was one of the first kids on the block to know about the novel world of then-newfangled websites, search engines (what's this Yahoo thing everyone keeps talking about?), instant messaging, and more.

But now, all of that stuff is old news. The Web is now 30 — older than many IT professionals that frequent Spiceworks — which means that it should be a fully functioning, responsible adult by now. And on its big birthday, journalists and the inventor of the WWW, Tim Berners-Lee, are taking time to reflect on this revolutionary technology.

According to The Guardian:

“His solution was a system called, initially, Mesh. It would combine a nascent field of technology called hypertext that allowed for human-readable documents to be linked together, with a distributed architecture that would see those documents stored on multiple servers, controlled by different people, and interconnected ... It took another year, until 1990, for Berners-Lee to start actually writing code. In that time, the project had taken on a new name. Berners-Lee now called it the World Wide Web."

Berners-Lee himself says that at 30, the Web has been great for the world, but it's also a dangerous as well — as any IT pro who has to deal with security will tell you. In an open letter about his invention, Berners-Lee recently said, "While the web has created opportunity, given marginalised groups a voice and made our daily lives easier ... it has also created opportunity for scammers, given a voice to those who spread hatred and made all kinds of crime easier to commit."

Swiss voting system's severe backdoor flaw

Another day, another security flaw. But this design slip up has consequences for an entire nation. And implications are huge, as a hacker could have exploited the vulnerability to change election results undetected.

According to Motherboard:

“An international group of researchers who have been examining the source code for an internet voting system Switzerland plans to roll out this year have found a critical flaw in the code that would allow someone to alter votes without detection. The cryptographic backdoor exists in a part of the system that is supposed to verify that all of the ballots and votes counted in an election are the same ones that voters cast. But the flaw could allow someone to swap out all of the legitimate ballots and replace them with fraudulent ones, all without detection."

If there's any good news to come out of this story, it's that the flaws were discovered as a result of a bug bounty program, and they're presumably already fixed. But the bad news is that the Swiss government apparently performed three professional security audits previously, none of which caught this serious flaw (facepalm).

But there's more going on in the world than that.

Scientists use math to 3D print noise-killing shapes

Are loud noises constantly offending your ears? Do you have a roommate or neighbor that constantly blasts his or her tunes? Fear not. Science might have a solution for you ... and we're not talking about noise-cancelling headphones. Instead, researchers have 3D-printed a shape that blocked 94 percent of sound blasted through a tube.

According to Fast Company:

"The implications for architecture and interior design are remarkable, because these metamaterials could be applied to the built environment in many different ways. For instance, they could be stacked to build soundproof yet transparent walls. Cubicles will never be the same. The researchers also believe that HVAC systems could be fitted with these silencers, and drones could have their turbines muted with such rings."

I can instantly think of a great IT use case for these shapes. I used to sit in a computer lab next to racks of very loud servers. At times, the deafening roar was similar to the noise produced by a jet engine. If a few pieces of custom-crafted plastic could reduce even half of the fan noise in the server room, it would be a huge win for IT pros.

And you can't not know this.

Scientists 'awaken' cells from a frozen woolly mammoth

Did we just take a big step towards a real-life Jurassic Park? Or should I say, Cenozoic park? Recently, scientists took parts of a frozen woolly mammoth's cells and combined them with the cells from a present-day mouse ... and the results were promising.

According to Newsweek:

"The team inserted muscle cell nuclei from a well-preserved mammoth carcass into mouse ova, where they watched 'signs of biological activity' taking place—a milestone they said would provide a platform to better understand extinct animal species ... The mammoth nuclei showed the spindle assembly, histone incorporation and partial nuclear formation ... although the development of a live animal is still a very long way off."

Bringing back gigantic ancient animals from the dead ... what could possibly go wrong? I don't know about you, but having seen all of the Jurassic Park movies, I'm OK with scientists not being able to do so for the time being.

Does this mean to get into each cubicle/office you need to enter through an a small tunnel? so that means it's pretty much like entering an Igloo, even more realistic if you have AC ;)

Scientists 'awaken' cells from a frozen woolly mammoth

Bringing back gigantic ancient animals from the dead ... what could possibly go wrong? I don't know about you, but having seen all of the Jurassic Park movies, I'm OK with scientists not being able to do so for the time being

That reminds me of a manga I read called Cage of Eden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cage_of_Eden where plan crash victims land on an island with prehistoric animals from different time periods. Worth a read if youre into that kind of stuff.

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Does this mean to get into each cubicle/office you need to enter through an a small tunnel? so that means it's pretty much like entering an Igloo, even more realistic if you have AC ;)

Scientists 'awaken' cells from a frozen woolly mammoth

Bringing back gigantic ancient animals from the dead ... what could possibly go wrong? I don't know about you, but having seen all of the Jurassic Park movies, I'm OK with scientists not being able to do so for the time being

That reminds me of a manga I read called Cage of Eden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cage_of_Eden where plan crash victims land on an island with prehistoric animals from different time periods. Worth a read if youre into that kind of stuff.

Haha. that would be unfortunate if all rooms had to have an igloo entrance. But it already makes sense for things that are already tubes, like ducts and cooling systems ... or maybe those tube-shaped capsule hotels in Japan. Speaking of Japan, I never really go into manga, but it does sound like a cool premise.

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"The team inserted muscle cell nuclei from a well-preserved mammoth carcass into mouse ova, where they watched 'signs of biological activity' taking place—a milestone they said would provide a platform to better understand extinct animal species ... The mammoth nuclei showed the spindle assembly, histone incorporation and partial nuclear formation ... although the development of a live animal is still a very long way off."

You forgot the Sir in
Sir Timothy Berners-Lee. He certainly has earned it.

No offense, but that only means something to your portion of the world. Seriously, I mean no disrespect. For example, if I'm Dr. Futile here in the US and I travel across the pond, you won't call me Dr. there, nor should you.

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So does the noise-cancelling only work on sounds that travel through a tube? Would love a real-world application of this

I remember the good 'ol days of the web, text only browsing and dial-up tones, woohoo! Even with all its flaws, I think its changed the world for the better, now we just have to get it to mature a bit, its far from perfect.

You forgot the Sir in
Sir Timothy Berners-Lee. He certainly has earned it.

No offense, but that only means something to your portion of the world. Seriously, I mean no disrespect. For example, if I'm Dr. Futile here in the US and I travel across the pond, you won't call me Dr. there, nor should you.

Im in the US. I would call him Sir if i ever met him.

I mean, would you call on the King Muhammed of Saudi Arabia as "dude Mohammed" simply because you arent Saudi?

Haha. that would be unfortunate if all rooms had to have an igloo entrance. But it already makes sense for things that are already tubes, like ducts and cooling systems ... or maybe those tube-shaped capsule hotels in Japan. Speaking of Japan, I never really go into manga, but it does sound like a cool premise.

This person is a verified professional.

Haha. that would be unfortunate if all rooms had to have an igloo entrance. But it already makes sense for things that are already tubes, like ducts and cooling systems ... or maybe those tube-shaped capsule hotels in Japan. Speaking of Japan, I never really go into manga, but it does sound like a cool premise.

Interesting, I presume it might end up something like Acoustic/Sound foam, just way more effective?

I guess so, with the main advantage over foam being allowing air and light to pass through.

So you might just put a ring at the end of a tube, or have a wall divider made of shapes that you can still see through. The example they used was it being highly impractical to put foam around a jet engine, but you could add the noise blocking shape around the front and back of the engine, which would still allow air to pass.

Hopefully, that also applies to the exhaust vents near a server fan, so a shape would block sound while allowing air to pass through.